SPEAKER BIOS

MODERATOR

Joe Day, AIA
Principal, Deegan Day Design & Architecture
Joe Day is an architect and critic in Los Angeles, where he leads Deegan-Day Design & Architecture and serves on the faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). His writing includes an additional foreword to the 2009 edition of Reyner Banham’s seminal study, Los Angeles: Architecture of the Four Ecologies (University of California Press, 2009), and Corrections & Collections: Architectures for Art and Crime (Routledge, 2013). He has taught at Yale, SCI-Arc, UCLA and SUTD in Singapore, and serves on the Board of Trustees at SCI-Arc, and as a Director at the W.M. Keck Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Heidi Duckler
Founder, Heidi Duckler Dance
Heidi Duckler is the Founder and Artistic Director of Heidi Duckler Dance in Los Angeles, California and Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Titled the “reigning queen of site-specific performance” by the LA Times, Duckler is a pioneer of site-specific place based contemporary practice. Through the use of expanded techniques and a methodology that encourages us to understand how dance, born from our experience, can be a tool for awareness, Duckler has contributed to redefining the field and has created more than 500 dance pieces all over the world. Duckler was the recipient of the 2021 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship and most recently, her film “Where We’re Going” has been selected for first prize by the Cinedanza Festival jury amongst 28 films from around the world. “Where We’re Going” was also selected for the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) Digital Media Wall in their new building in downtown Sacramento, scheduled to premiere in 2022. Currently, Duckler is on faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Film and Media Studies Department. Duckler earned a BS in Dance from the University of Oregon and an MA in Choreography from UCLA, and served as a Board Member of the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance Advancement Council. Awards include the Distinguished Dance Alumna award from the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance, the Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences award, and the National Endowment of the Arts American Masterpiece award. Duckler was a recipient of the 2019 Oregon Dance Film Commission and her work received the award for Best Choreography for the Lens at Verve Dance Film Festival.

Javier “Javi” Grillo-Marxuach
Screenwriter/Producer
Javier “Javi” Grillo-Marxuach is one of the Emmy Award-winning producers of Lost and Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and is currently Executive Producer of the hit Netflix series The Witcher. His work includes stints as writer/producer on From, Cowboy Bebop, Blood and Treasure, Raising Dion, The 100, Medium, Boomtown, and the original Charmed. An advocate of mentorship and education, Grillo-Marxuach and his family have granted scholarships for writers at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and the Creative Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University, and is co-host and co-creator of the Children of Tendu podcast, an educational series for aspiring television writers. Javi is Puerto Rican, his name is pronounced “HA-WEE-AIR GREE-JOE MARKS-WATCH”.

Laura Cabo, AIA
VP Portfolio Creative Executive, Walt Disney Imagineering
Laura Cabo is the Walt Disney Imagineering portfolio creative executive for Disney Cruise Line projects, where she is responsible for the creative development of new ship builds, ship drydocks, island destinations, and cruise terminals. Her purview includes the Wish-class ships, the first of which launched in 2022 with two more due for delivery in 2024 and 2025; another vessel to be home-ported in Singapore that will be one of the largest cruise ships in the world; a Disney Cruise Line terminal coming to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and numerous additional Disney Cruise Line-related projects. She holds a BA from Trinity University in Texas and a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota. She is a registered architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, and the Themed Entertainment Association. Laura loves to paint and draw and enjoys her midcentury modern home with her architect husband and their Australian Labradoodle, Siggi.

Carmen Argote
Artist
Carmen Argote is a multidisciplinary artist often pointing to the body, class, and economic structures in relation to architecture and personal history. Argote (b. 1981, Guadalajara, Mexico; lives and works in Los Angeles) received their MFA in 2007 from the University of California, Los Angeles, where they also received their BFA in 2004. Argote is the recipient of a Cultural Trailblazer Award (2023), the Fellows of Contemporary Art Award (2020), the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2019); an Artadia Los Angeles award (2019), the Artist Community Engagement Grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2015), and a California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2013). Argote’s work is in the collections of Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Argote is co-chair of the Artist Council at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Hadrian Predock
Artist, Architect

Hadrian Predock is an artist and architect based in Los Angeles, CA. His solo work and the work with his former collaborator John Frane has been exhibited internationally in prestigious institutions including MOCA, the Venice Biennale, the Pomona College Museum of Art, the Boston ICA, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum. He has taught and lectured extensively. His work ranges from small scale paintings to large scale immersive installations. He is the Director of Undergraduate Programs at USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles.

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